Rush that order in now! 2024 Kia Sportage hybrid here from January to take on the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Honda Z-RV Hybrid, Haval H6 HEV and more

The wildly successful Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is about to get its strongest competition yet in the form of the highly-popular Kia Sportage hybrid electric vehicle (HEV).

Due out from January, this series-parallel hybrid version will finally fill a hole in the medium SUV’s model range, whilst tapping into the biggest sales segment today even more effectively than before.

Under the Sportage HEV’s stylish bonnet will be Kia’s long-serving 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine combined with a 44.2kW electric motor, while a 1.5kW battery pack is located beneath the back seat. Together, they drive either the front or all four wheels depending on grade, via a six-speed automatic transmission.

Full Australian specifications as well as pricing will be announced at a later date, but don't expect it to start from under $50,000.

In European guise, the Sportage HEV delivers 169kW of power and 350Nm of torque, and can average around 5.7L/100km on the WLTP cycle. It’s no slouch, either, sprinting to 100km/h from zero in eight seconds, on the way to a top speed of 193km/h.

Sounds good. But if you’re in the market and interested, act fast, because – as usual – supply constraints apply, with only about 200 Sportage HEVs set to be made available each month for Australia for the time being. In contrast, last month, the continuing petrol and diesel versions managed nearly 1200 units.

“We will have better supply (with Sportage hybrid) than what we’ve seen with (the larger seven-seater SUV) Sorento hybrid,” according to Kia Motors Australia (KMAu) head of product planning, Roland Rivero.

“It won’t be anywhere near RAV4 (volume numbers). RAV4 is driven by the hybrid, but we won’t be able to get that sort of supply… it will only be about 200 per month.”

Still, this is a victory for both KMAu as well as consumers generally, as Kia Motors in South Korea did not prioritise hybrid production for the Sportage version we get in this country.

That’s because the latest, NQ5-series fifth-generation version of the brand’s bestselling (as well as longest-running) model in Australia is actually offered in two lengths – a short-wheelbase and shorter-bodied version for Europe, as well as a long-wheelbase longer-bodied model that we get in Australia.

The problem lay with hybrid production – it was initially only for Europe (from the Slovakia manufacturing plant that supplies that part of the world) and the United States; Australia, on the other hand, gets its Sportage models from the Gwangju facility in South Korea.

As Rivero explained to CarsGuide last year, convincing Kia Motors headquarters to develop and produce the hybrid in right-hand drive for Australia out of South Korea was not as easy a task as one might imagine.

Full Australian specifications as well as pricing will be announced at a later date.

“We’ve made it very clear to headquarters that we want the hybrid,” he said at the time.

“It’s very easy to demonstrate why it would be successful… the challenge is getting our Sportage – which comes out of the Korean factory – to be done and developed for Australia (as a hybrid).”

That said, KMAu is shying away from importing the Sportage Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV), due to continuing low interest in this style of vehicle.

Whilst a fan of the PHEV concept, new KMAu Chief Executive Officer, Damien Meredith, does not believe Australians are willing to embrace its advantages.

“Looking at last month’s VFACTS, PHEV was 799 sales, EVs 8124 sales… that probably paints a picture,” he said.

“My personal view is it’s a hard concept to sell. I don’t think the consumer understands it.”

Rivero added that if the Australian consumers unexpectedly did turn on to PHEVs and KMAu did need to subsequently go down that path as it has already done with the existing Sorento and previous-generation Niro, then there is another model that is ready and waiting in the wings.

“In (the latest, second-generation) Niro’s case, we did the tuning for it and the homologation for it,” he revealed.

“The Niro PHEV could be called up anytime if there was a sudden market demand for one, but in this case, it’s probably not going to happen.”

So, what are Australians missing in not having a Sportage PHEV?

It is powered by the same 1.6-litre four-pot turbo petrol engine as the hybrid, but with a 66.9kW permanent magnet electric motor and 13.8kWh lithium-ion battery, for a 195kW total system power output.